In The Studio With

REM

If you were fortunate in 1983 to discover the first full-length album Murmur from Athens GA-based R.E.M. , you probably realize that it sounded unlike anything else at the time,and precious little ever since ,except maybe their followup Reckoning.Over the next four years and five albums on indie label IRS,Michael Stipe,Peter Buck,Mike Mills,and Bill Berry made some of the smartest,quirky,angular rock of any American band.Largely on the popularity of “The One I Love” from 1987′s Document,R.E.M. jumped ship to Warner Bros Records and recorded the top-notch rocker Green in 1988,but for 1991′s Out of Time,the band did a re-think,returning in many ways to the more intimate approach,instrumentation,and arrangements of those two earliest albums.

Any serious list of “songs of the decades”has to include Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”for the Seventies,“Every Breath You Take” by The Police for the Eighties,and for the 1990s,R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” from 1991′s Out of  Time.These are universally acclaimed songs which at once define the times in which they were written and released,yet are timeless in their never-ending appeal.In this week’s classic rock interview,Stipe,Buck,and Mills share thoughtful,at times controversial,insights .-Redbeard